TRUE CRIMES

The police have been going through a bad spell again.

The Andrew Mitchell case grinds on. For those who haven't been following this saga - Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell was forced to resign after allegedly calling police officers “plebs”. Whilst this sounds daft enough, even to me as I type it, the affair has become the stuff of a Hollywood drama. Mitchell has always denied the 'official' version of events and subsequently, it transpired that the three police officers involved lied about Mitchell, but also that their bosses decided not to instigate misconduct proceedings against them. The Home Affairs Select Committee are now investigating. There have already been two internal enquiries and it has just been admitted that police actions so far, mostly improperly defending the police against Mitchell, have cost more than £230,000. Apart from the MPs enquiry, there is still the possibility of criminal charges being brought. No estimates yet of what all that will cost. As I say, if this wasn't real, it would probably be an amusing, if expensive, incident in a fictional story.

In a separate incident, a policewoman was arrested in April after whistle-blowing to the press that the Cumbria Police and Crime Commissioner had used a chauffeur-driven car on journeys costing £700, despite having an official car. Although there is nothing illegal (provided certain steps are followed and I confess I have no idea whether they were) about whistle-blowing, the woman was detained by the police. The police commissioner has now apologised for his "mistakes", although it seems no action will be taken against him. The woman has now also been released and will face no criminal action (for what offence it's anyway difficult to imagine). I've no idea what the cost was of pursuing this women whilst the person actually doing wrong was the police commissioner, but at least it was eventually acknowledged that she did nothing criminal. (The commissioner is apparently now hiring a PR consultant . . .).

Another current activity is the policing of anti-fracking protesters in Sussex. I have mixed feelings about this. Clearly such protests can become violent or criminal in some way. But, actually, there is nothing illegal in the protesters sitting on the roadside with their posters and banners. However the police have admitted that the estimated costs so far of police presence has reached a stunning £4m.

Of course policing costs money, but here we have police operations against an MP, on charges which appear to have been fabricated, but no action taken against the offending police; the arrest of a woman who revealed profligate spending by a police commissioner, where similarly the object of the police action turned out to have been not guilty, and again no action against the police representative who did wrong; and the policing of persons exercising their civil rights. In these police operations alone, several million pounds have been spent. But where is the wrongdoing?

The latest case involves a woman in Lincolnshire who was injured in an unprovoked attack by a person who was later arrested and who admitted their guilt to the police. The victim now claims that the police have offered her £150 to drop charges against the attacker because the time and cost involved in pursuing the case could not be justified. I admit that something sounds very odd about this, so I guess there may be more to it, but, as the woman did not accept the 'compensation', the attacker has now been released anyway without charge. That seems odder.

So, yes, policing costs money. But there are questions about whether the police are spending their time on the right priorities or their budget on pursuing the right criminals.

ONE PERSON'S FREEDOM

The funeral of Margaret Thatcher will take place tomorrow.  In her lifetime, as Prime Minister, she managed to divide the country.  People with firm opinions and uncompromising stances usually do encourage strong views one way or the other.  Since she won three consecutive elections and is still Britain's longest serving Prime Minister for over 100 years, those divisions clearly did not split the country into two equal parts, but the minority that opposed her of course became the most vociferous and violent.

The same will no doubt be the case during her funeral tomorrow.  There are those who still hate her and will go out of their way to show it tomorrow. But those that make the loudest noise, as ever, will not necessarily be right.  Maybe they are incapable of rational argument or perhaps after all this time (Thatcher resigned in 1990) their ineffectual resentment has still not evaporated or maybe they are just hateful, but demonstrating at a funeral will not endear them to anyone, nor elicit support for their views.  Any violence will no doubt be condemned by all political parties.  So such protesters will simply be dismissed as outside normal society.

But a separate debate has arisen which is much more interesting, and important, than whether you still like or dislike Thatcher.  The police have said that, in policing the funeral, they are determined not to prevent freedom of speech.  In this country, I'm pleased to say, dissent is allowed, even in public.  But what is the limit of that dissent?  To what extent is freedom of speech, or freedom of expression, or freedom of movement, restricted by public order legislation?

I am quite firm that freedom of speech should be permitted unconditionally.  At any time, in any place.  If someone wishes to stand up in church and say that religion is poppycock, that's fine by me.  If they want to shout tomorrow that Thatcher was an evil woman, that's OK too.  But they can't expect that theirs will be the only view expressed.  And this is where demonstrations can run into legal difficulties.  Holding up a banner is fine.  Chanting what's on the banner is also fine.  But when have you seen two opposing groups of demonstrators simply standing together chanting their opposing views?  When one group seems to be chanting louder, insults will be bandied, jostling will begin and one group will no doubt soon physically attack the other.  So where does the public order offence begin - when the chanting starts?  When the chanting takes on an aggressive tone?  When physical contact occurs?  When the fighting starts?  And which group committed the public order offence?

We can easily accept that a public order offence may have occurred when we hear a Muslim cleric preaching against the West.  But what of a group dishonouring Margaret Thatcher and preaching against her?  At what stage does freedom of speech spill over into an illegal act?  A public order offence may well have occurred if a milk bottle is thrown at her coffin.  But what if just the milk is thrown?  Or what about holding up a placard covered in hate filled words and chanting hatred against her?  Is this incitement to violence?  Or maybe it's libel, legally punishable defamation?  But at what stage would you be inhibiting a person's freedom of speech - when you take away their placard or when you move them along or when you arrest them?

There have been attempts to quantify freedom of speech for the purposes of demonstrating tomorrow. As usual it all sounds silly.  It's a bit like a contract for behaviour on a date.  This is OK, but that isn't.  In the end, it will depend on the personal judgement of one police officer.  And I suspect it will not be placards or chanting or turning one's back or singing, 'Ding dong - the Queen is dead' or even throwing milk that leads to arrest.

I sincerely hope violence doesn't arise.  And, on the other hand, I hope too that the police will get it right.  If many are arrested, far from turning in her grave, I suspect  that Thatcher will be smiling.  She had no time for trouble makers then and would certainly not have now.

So, even in death she arouses strong views.  But, in the debate over freedoms in British society and the rights of the individual, I think I know where she would have drawn her uncompromising line. 

KNIT PICKING

Since the explosion of interest here in Scandinavian thrillers, both written and on television, I suppose it was inevitable that we should start seeing British thrillers based on the same tenets - dark scenes, broody, troubled detective, lots of suspects, every character with a mysterious secret, all the players somehow inter-connected, each episode meandering mysteriously and slowly on, each ending with yet more unanswered questions and maybe a new suspect, women in jumpers, etc.

I watched the 2-part thriller Shetland last week.  It was quite good.  It was set in a bleak landscape (the Shetland Isles unsurprisingly), there were lots of secrets, the community was close-knit, the jumpers were even more closely knit, everyone seemed to have a secret, the detective was broody, but . . . I don't know, it finished somehow rather unsatisfactorily.  I think they missed the point about making it slow.  Two episodes was just not enough.  When we found out whodunnit, it wasn't really such a big surprise and, since there had been little time for many plot twists, it ended with a phut.

There was great scenery though.  And an obscure Viking festival was featured; I had never heard of that and was fascinated that it has survived.  It could have added an even more sinister atmosphere to the context of the crime, but again, it sort of passed by.  The series was as if a producer had demanded a British rival to The Killing and someone had made the leap from Icelandic jumper to Shetland jumpers, but hadn't really followed the thought through.  The disillusioned detective's daughter had the best jumpers and all the best lines - he said to her, 'you can see Iceland over there.'  She responded, 'what the supermarket?  Oh no, I forgot, there are no supermarkets on the islands are there.'  Later she added, 'I can't even go out and climb a tree.  There aren't any!'  Unless you want to see what The Shetlands look like, don't bother to look for this series on catch-up.

I am in the middle of the longer Broadchurch at the moment.  Broadchurch beach is actually Bridport and is based around the high cliffs you may remember I featured in a recent post.  The main actors are David Tennant and Olivia Colman.  If you are a fan of David Tennant, he is brilliant.  If you're not, you might think he acts too hard.  He is the broody detective with a past to hide and, as with others in this genre, he seems to be emotionless.  But it's hard to tell whether he's trying to look like someone who's trying hide something and struggling to suppress his emotions for risk of giving too much away although not being quite broody enough to be charismatic and likeable or whether he's trying to look like someone who's a brilliant impassive detective with a broody nature, but isn't quite succeeding.

But the show is actually all about Colman.  She is just extraordinary.  Knowing all the members of the community well, her character has to help conduct an enquiry that appears to suspect any or all of them.  And of course she still wishes to be one of them and is distraught for all of them and shares all their suffering.  When she looks at the camera, you don't need any words, nor anyone else in the scene, you just feel what's going through her mind and what's going on.  Fabulous!

So far the series has followed all the rules - dark scenes, broody, troubled detective, lots of suspects, characters with secrets, all the players somehow inter-connected, each episode grinding slowly on, each ending with unanswered questions and maybe a new suspect, and a woman, not in a particularity memorable jumper, but in a nice boating waterproof anyway.  I hope it continues to unravel in this way (the series, not the jumper) (although, on the other hand . . .).  Broadchurch will be appearing on US TVs later in the year, so look out for it.

In contrast, I have just finished watching Spiral, the French detective series.  In many respects this series also followed the Scandinavian rules.  In fact it beat Shetland and Broadchurch by also having subtitles.  They both had tricky Scottish accents to contend with, but there's something about subtitles that adds to the mystery.  Or maybe that's just by association with the Scandinavian language thrillers.

Anyway, Spiral also had a woman in a jumper.  Again, not a particularly memorable one, although I might have just been distracted by the fact  that it kept slipping off her shoulder.  All the police here  seemed to interpret 'plain clothes' as down-and-out scruffy blousons.  What a waste of an opportunity for the French fashion knitwear industry.  One of the criminals disguised himself as a policeman at one stage by not shaving and putting on a leather bomber jacket.  Even he saw that it was some sort of uniform.  But I suppose it must have had an element of realism in it, otherwise it wouldn't have been accepted on French TV.  Perhaps all those louche men hanging around on French street corners with cigarettes in their mouths are actually police officers.

Spiral was also a police procedural thriller, like most of the dark, mysterious Scandinavian ones.  I am in the process of reading through the 10-book Martin Beck series, which was the forerunner of all of today's police procedurals.  The main premise there, apart from the gloomy, dedicated detective with a consequent hopeless homelife, was that society was rotten, mostly because of the actions of Government.  So most of the action takes place in run-down public housing, with understaffed police, illegal immigrants living outside the law, citizens with their lives ruined by public servants or wealthy industrialists, etc and most of the criminals evoking more sympathy than the representatives of the law.

Spiral had the dingy, run-down back streets, rather than the grand frontages one is used to in scenes of Paris, it also had the illegal immigrants and down-trodden citizens and uncaring, self-serving authorities.  The police characters too all had the usual personal problems.  But it didn't seem to have the political message of the Martin Beck procedural.  What it did have though was a great premise - instead of the gloomy, bleak, wintry, nocturnal environment of The Killing or Shetland, the atmosphere was built up with intertwined stories of crooks, lawyers and police, and every one of them operating outside of the law with greater or lesser degrees of venality.  Maybe that was the political message ie real life in France is not the one promoted in all the superficial fashion and holiday magazines?  Anyway it was fascinating to watch at every level.

We were not invited to like the thuggish police officers that much.  Nor did I have much sympathy for the criminals, certainly not for the anarchists among them.  But, if the environment revealed in this series was indeed realistic, what a dystopia!  I guess there will be another series in due course.  Watch it!

BEING PC

So Andrew Mitchell has resigned.  I can understand the point that he has lost the trust of members of his party – a disastrous failing for an erstwhile bullying Chief Whip, and therefore has been rendered ineffective.  But I'm not as exuberant about the resolution of this affair as many seem to be.

In the first place, this is so obviously another strike by the political hyenas who delight in picking off the apparently weakest straggling members of the Government pack.   The sight of Milliband ranting and posturing before Mitchell in the House of Commons was quite extraordinary.  Was he serious that Mitchell's own rant at the police was the most terrible thing that the Government have done.  EVA!?  Of course not.   And nor is it the most important issue in British politics at the moment.   But Mitchell's resignation removes one more first choice Minister from the Government benches.   And with no danger of Milliband being forced to explain any of his own party's policies in the process.

But, secondly, the accusation that he called the police 'plebs'.  OK, that has been blown up into some sort of class thing, as though only arrogant toffs use the term and therefore the entire Government is composed of arrogant toffs.  But that's patently not true.  The first bit isn't anyway; I've certainly used the word as an insult and not only to members of the lower classes either.  Oh, come on, as insults go, this is pretty tame, isn't it.  Is the suggestion that, had he used the word 'bastard' for example that somehow that wouldn't have been so bad and he could have stayed in his job?  Wouldn't he have been implying that the entire police force was born out of wedlock.  Hmmm, actually they probably were these days.  Well, choose your own worst swear word then.  Wouldn't that be more offensive?  Had he not admitted using other foul language, I might even have suspected that he was using the term to avoid saying some expletive.

But, let's assume that he did use the word (he has consistently denied it) and that he meant that all policemen are common and that Ministers are superior to policemen.  Well, actually it's true, isn't it?   Oh, all right, maybe Ministers are not exactly aristocrats these days, but they are elected by the people to represent them.  And members of the police force should surely not be offended to be called members of the general public.  Today the term is maybe not used in this strict classical way, but it is usually used (I thought jocularly) to mean that the person concerned has behaved in an uncultured manner.   Personally, I thought at the time that refusing to open the gate for a member of the Government on a bike because the rules only mention 'cars' is pretty uncultured.   Of course Mitchell may well have meant to say that the entire police force is low-born and uneducated, whereas he and the rest of the Conservative Party were high-born and educated at private schools.  I don't think this rings true.   I think it much more likely that he was frustrated and irritated at his apparent humiliation by the police on the gate and lashed out.  Had I found myself in those circumstances, I wonder what I would have said.  Might I have used the word 'pleb'?  I suppose I might.  But I think (I give myself the benefit of the doubt here) that I might have chosen it because I thought it a more cutting jibe than 'Jobsworth', yet perhaps not as bad as the swear word you chose above.  I don't know.   Would I though have meant that I am born to rule?   Or might I perhaps have intended to suggest that I am conducting the business of government and the job of the policeman on the gate is to open and close the gate as I go about my work, to support my work, not to hinder it?  Who knows?

But there is another point about this.   Why did the policeman refuse to open the gate for Mitchell? Was it really just because he was cycling or was it simply because he could refuse?  And why are the police continuing to make such a fuss about the incident?   Even after his resignation, the Police Federation statement included the comment, "He still hasn't provided a full explanation of his version of events compared with the police reports.  It's a matter of honesty and integrity for us and it's quite right that he's gone."  Honesty and integrity in the police force, eh.  This hasn't been a good period for the police with evidence that police tampered with reports into the Hillsborough disaster to hide their guilt, with the conflicting reports of the police shooting of Mark Duggan, with the dereliction of duty involved in turning a blind eye to child sex grooming, and with a whole string of incidents where individual policemen behaved inappropriately and high-handedly towards members of the public, sometimes fatally.

I have a great deal of respect for the police.  I am pretty sure I couldn't do their job. But I trust them to do it, to protect me and my property and my rights.  But they are none the less ordinary members of society themselves – 'the police are the public and the public are the police', as Robert Peel put it. They have to work pretty hard, especially with their military style outfits and weapons (batons and tasers, which we incidentally are not allowed to carry in the streets), not to appear to lord it over you and me, not to look like our superiors, like prison guards or army officers.   But there is a danger that they are beginning to act that way.  Having to control demonstrations and often being reviled by demonstrators in the process must make their task the tougher.  But they have to stick to it.  They will gain more respect for good behaviour and conversely lose much for wrong-doing, for arrogance or for disrespecting members of the general public they are a part of.

The Government is currently considering a review of police pay and work conditions which is of much concern to police officers.  I have no way of commenting on what the review should say or what it will recommend for the police, but most informed commentators seem to think that the organisation is long overdue for reform.  It is understandable that individual police officers should feel strongly about changes to their pay and conditions and thus feel animosity to those that impose them.   But again they must be careful not to lose their essential impartiality.  The Mitchell affair looked suspiciously like a smoke-screen or maybe even a small act of retaliation.

Whatever, I'm not sure the police will have endeared themselves much to the Government.  Forcing Mitchell to resign was a petty act that lacked any real merit.  But it will have hurt the Prime Minister. I wonder whether creating that animosity was the best strategy, as the Government nears its decision on police reorganisation.

GAGS OFF

I shall try not to say, ‘PC gone mad’.  Oh, I just said it.  Anyway the fact is that PC is mad, so technically it can only go madder (though not in fact possible) or saner.  Can the latter at last be happening?  Is there finally a non-PC backlash?

I did wonder this the other day when there was the outcry about Frankie Boyle who likes to attack taboos with his humour.  Personally, I don’t find much of this stuff funny and so it does come across as tasteless and gratuitous.  It’s outrageous and insulting to specific persons, but not, I think, wit.  Maybe it’s also rather lazy, puerile writing.  It reminds me of when I was at school and we used to tell jokes like, ‘why did the leper lose at poker?’*  I’m not even always sure about Michael McIntyre who occasionally raises a laugh by slating someone/thing just for effect (rather than for real humour).  But I accept that many people like this.  It is in any case often the way stand-up is.  And I have always appreciated comedians like Joan Rivers or Ruby Wax who rarely take prisoners (but who I think are consistently funny too). 

And humour has fashions, like anything else.  Maybe there is no place these days for the comedians of yore (although I though the Christmas Ronnie programme was pretty popular.) (Perhaps that was only amongst the older population?).  But maybe attitudes have fashion too?  Has the PC approach had its day?

A propos my last post, I imagine for example that the BBC will be careful to find good reasons in future why it is appointing certain persons as presenters.  It won’t necessarily flood our screens with old people.  That case rather goes against the trend, except that in their final judgement, the tribunal also criticised the BBC for being obsessed with recruiting ethnic minorities.  Maybe that misguided policy will change too?  But hopefully with selection of the best candidates, rather than some extension of the present positive discrimination.

Anyway I was much encouraged by former Home Secretary Jack Straw’s comments on Pakistani gangs.  I have always thought quite a lot of him and his willingness to say ‘Pakistani’ earned him much respect from me (since that’s what they are).  You can read the position of the police here.  This reticence was understandable, if palpable nonsense.

I wondered too if the present government was detecting a mood for greater incorrectness, or whether it just wished to start a movement to break down the sillier aspects of correctness, when it stated in the Education White Paper last month that it wished to increase teacher authority in schools.  I think even parents have had enough of this ludicrous situation where teachers have to put up with abuse because they can’t punish pupils without breaking some over-hyped code.

Next, it would be nice to see a few more infringement of rights cases thrown out by the courts.  Especially those brought by women who never seem arsed to do any work, but winge loudly on their mobiles about how badly done by they are as they go down the shops to buy fags, diet Coke and undersized underwear and then fall over steps they can't see under their bellies.  Oh, am I allowed to say all that?

*  because he threw in his hand.

DRIVE FASTER POLICE

I was at first annoyed by what seemed a petty piece of petulance.  But then I was struck by the police explanation, ‘Cost is not a consideration in our decision to prosecute’.  So they will try to get a conviction whatever the cost.  Conviction rates are what are important.

The country is still laced with speed cameras.  What are they for?  I always assumed that they were there to slow drivers down on particularly difficult stretches of road.  There is a camera near us on the A3 where the road suddenly, after a long 70mph run, becomes 50 and there is a camera just after.  Locals know all about it and break hard as they approach (and usually then speed up a little again after they have passed).  I have never felt guilty about driving this way; after all, I slowed down to a ‘safe speed’ before the tricky bend.  And I wasn’t surprised to read in the newspaper that this was one of the most profitable speed cameras in Britain.  It is after all slightly unfair to have a 50mph sign without warning and then a sneaky camera just after it where motorists are still slowing down.  But that’s life.  The police have to make their money somehow.  Or so I thought.

The rationale for setting up speed cameras was something else.  Originally they were indeed described as a valuable means of cutting road deaths, since they would encourage drivers to slow down and avoid accidents.  One Chief Constable is on record as saying that ’it is beyond doubt that they prevent death and injury.’  One other official involved in setting up the network, talked of giving the motorist plenty of warning when approaching cameras to avoid accidents.  It is also worth saying that the location of speed cameras is shown on the latest road maps and GPS screens.  This prior warning is apparently perfectly legal, since it was determined that encouraging drivers to slow where they knew there were cameras was a prime objective.  The views of another Chief Constable were once quoted as being that cameras should be brightly painted.  ‘I have no time for the argument that cameras should be hidden,’ he said.  ‘I'm interested in prevention.’  Statistics have now shown however that in the first 5 years since their introduction, road deaths actually increased.  So why keep the cameras then?  Because they have become an extraordinary source of revenue.

I don’t know how much has been raised from speed cameras since they were installed, but I estimate that it is now approaching a quarter of a billion pounds. It is a great money making machine.  Or at least it was.  The Coalition Government has pledged to scrap public funding for these expensive pieces of equipment under the present round of budget cuts and some regions have already turned theirs off.    And ‘speed’ camera is a bit of a misnomer anyway, since around a million drivers have been prosecuted for other offences from driving in a bus lane to driving dangerously.  And it is now possible to identify, using speed cameras, cars with unpaid tax or other offences against them, or whether drivers are wearing seat belts.  There was even a proposal by the last government that speed cameras should be used to recognise good driving and help motorists earn points toward some sort of safety recognition through his insurance or other means.  But closer supervision of drivers and raking in the fines was clearly paramount.

But all that has changed again.  Mr Thompson took it upon himself, by flashing his lights, to slow oncoming traffic before they came to a speed trap round the corner.  This is a fairly common practice here and in several other countries.  But the police took a dim view of it; a second speed cop caught Mr Thompson warning drivers and prosecuted him.  He was convicted of wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of their duties.  As one observer put it, there can be no offence for trying to get motorists to drive more safely.  Presumably after Mr Thompson’s warning some drivers did slow down and the road was thus safer.  That can only have been obstructing the police if they actually wanted the cars to continue driving too fast.

But encouraging traffic to avoid a speed trap is now it seems an offence.  Speed traps are not for making the roads safer, nor yet for raising revenue, no, they are simply there to help the police keep up their prosecution rate.  So the next time we see the police statistics showing how many criminals they caught on our highways and byways, just remember, the police would rather spend money on gaining those convictions than having the roads made safe, since safer roads means fewer convictions and presumably too few convictions raises questions about the number of police.